The present invention relates to a charge pump circuit and, more particularly, to a single capacitor, low leakage charge pump circuit.
Lowering the supply voltage of an integrated circuit (IC) helps reduce the overall power requirements of the IC, which helps reduce costs in multiple ways. Some components of the IC may, however, in order to function properly, need voltage levels higher than the reduced supply voltage level. A charge pump is typically used to generate such higher voltage levels from the available supply voltage level. Conventional charge pumps use a switching means to charge a flying capacitor and then discharge the flying capacitor to a reservoir capacitor to provide a doubled or inverted output voltage. The use of multiple capacitors and/or switches requires a significant amount of the IC's real estate. Thus, it would be advantageous to reduce the amount of real estate of a charge pump circuit.